Pray for Laura

Catalina after another convert

We had an interesting Bible Study yesterday in the valley. Catalina did lesson 7 with the family from 89 Dogari street. We call them the "nine families" family. Thru the lesson we lost all four men one by one.... some of them had also prayed about prayers in the past. We pray that someday they will see the need to actaully follow Christ. Any way there was a girl named Florentina that came to their house from Focsani who did want to pray a prayer and give her life to Christ. This is very common but we pray that the Lord accepted her prayer. She said that she would come to our meeting on Sunday. We hope she does. We spent about 30 minutes with her going over many passages of Scripture. Pray for Flori and that she will begin to follow Jesus and turn from her sins.

Romanian Prom Night

Robert has been seeing Danilia now for about six months. They seem to get along great. She is the oldest of four sisters. (Her younger sister Gabriela is becoming good friends with Katie). Violeta, Danelia's friend is pictured in the black dress, she is one of Danelia's classmates. I don't think that Robert suffered too much this night but I told him as a missionary family we must do things that we hate doing. Hanging out with these two must have been missarable but he did fine. Robert truely entered into their culture this night! He did not know how to dance and really stood out like a true believer in Christ, PTL for this! We finally went and rescued him around 2:00 A.M. He promised that he would never to anything like this again it was so difficult for him :) actually for his parents ONLY!!! Daniella's family found Christ through an English team that came to their village to share the Gospel some time ago. They had been attending the Pentacostal church but now are attending the "Church in the Valley." They just adopted us!

GRATAR (BBQ) After Service

Went to see Resvans Family

Just For DOC

Taken from wiki....

The Maramureş wooden churches in Northern Transylvania are a selection of eight examples of different architectural solutions from different periods and areas. They are Orthodox churches. They are narrow but high timber constructions with characteristic tall, slim bell towers at the western end of the building. They are a particular vernacular expression of the cultural landscape of this mountainous area of northern Romania.
Maramureş is perhaps one of the better-known regions of Romania - but still not much travelled. Its well-preserved wooden villages and churches, its traditional lifestyle, and the local colourful dresses still in use make Maramureş as near to a living museum as can be found in Europe. The beautiful gentle landscape of fields and meadows, dotted with farms and villages, and its inhabitants, welcome visitors with wide-open arms. The famous wooden churches of the region were built during the 17th and 18th centuries, on the place of older churches that no longer exist. They are a response to a prohibition against stone Orthodox churches. The churches are made of thick logs, are quite small and dark inside, and painted with rather “naïve” Biblical scenes. The most characteristic features are the tall tower above the entrance and the massive roof that seems to dwarf the main body of the church.

At the ski area in Brashov is also a beautiful church like this.....

Randy goes to the Dentist

This is Randy driving in Bucharest. He did great....I am having trouble uploading my video's now after seeing it work the last couple of days. I am not sure what the problem is. I am looking into this but if you happen to have any ideas please let me know. I am seeing the image on the compose page, the Html looks good but the blog is just blank or has the square and no footage. So let me know if you can help me. Thanks. I want to post about our trip to the Dentist...

Form One Group

This Bible study is happening as I post it. I left Teresa just a few minutes ago as she started her first lesson from the step Form One Group. After finishing the 20 lessons under the teach one lesson step they now move towards the Form One Group with a book called "I have been Born Again Now" what by Charles Brock. This plan is pretty on paper but looks more like a train wreck when put into practice. Pray that we get some momentum back and start going into these houses with more and more people. Notice the NICE QUIET environment they have to work in especially at the end!

Interview with Bogdon

We had a chance to speak with Bogdon and ask him about the church start, his work and his family. Only 1 minute but very interesting as you will see in this short clip.

DAR Lady Three Years Later

Here is the picture that appeared in the Daily American Republic on Thursday, June 16, 2005 with an article on how Living Word Baptist wanted to start a church in this part of town....now it is a reality thanks to God. Teresa Myers cut this exact picture "out of the paper" and put it on her desk. Later she was on a mission trip in July of 2005 that allowed her to lead Lenuti to Christ! Now Randy and Teresa are HERE as missionaries and helping to establish this church in the valley. GOD is awesome!

MAY FIRST Church Service in New Meeting Place

This was May 1st, 2008, we had about 40 from the valley including children, we had about 20 Americans and 20 from the Baptist Church in the city. We need to get out and meet the people though because we just met for the third time and only had three people from the valley. We need to establish ourselves in the valley soon. Pray for us this week as we begin to knock on doors and help this fledgling church start along. We have had TREMENDOUS support from the big Baptist church Holy Trinity of which I am so thankful.... May God bless their efforts. We will begin to work extremely hard (when we have time) to get invitations out and also try to get in open the doors through the week. We will be looking for opportunities to get more people to come to our meetings. We meet every Sunday 10-12 and 6-8. We still need to get in the houses or we will not make it. We had almost 40 people from the mother church there this morning with out them it would be a very discouraging start.
Please pray that people will start coming to the services that we hold....many came that first day because the Americans were in town and they thought they might GET something from them. We have a toe hold in the valley and we plan on keeping it. People think that what we are doing is great but are not so motivated to come together, if we are in their house it is great though... We have a very important meeting on the 5th of June with a team from the states. They have the potential to help us in some very big ways. Please pray for this....

Learning how to post a video

I am just learning how to post a videoIt was not that hard but I don't remember how I did this....I will try again....So now I can keep the progress posted with video...I hope...

The Church in the Valley

This was those who showed up to our first Sunday Morning service. We had to go get the ones in the valley and remind them but they came! We had a pretty good group there to help start the work in the valley. We talked about what a church is and what a church isn't. We talked about putting your faith in Christ and turning from our sins. We were really pleased with the first service and expect many to follow. We also had around 10 others from the valley that came to the 5 oclock service that did not attend the morning service. So all in all we have around 12-15 from the valley as of now coming to our new location. We even had communion as it was the first day of the month and all baptist churches take communion on this day. We pray that the Lord will bless our efforts. I am sure that Satan is already working overtime to try and stop this...we just don't know if He will attack from those inside the church or on the outside...this is yet to be seen!

We took communion for the fist service in the valley it was so appropriate to share in this together with those who want the Lord's presence with us each and every step along the way. He has been so faithful to get us this far we dare not leave Him behind NOW!

It was a very casual invironment and we just went through Colossians chapter 1:15-23 to teach them some important truths about trusting our self or trusting in Christ who was from the begning, created all things, saved us from God's wrath by making peace with His blood and brought us back to God by His death in a human body. I simply tried to show them the could trust in Christ and Him alone for salvation. Bogdon and Paula really enjoyed the service also...PTL>

We were so glad to see Gina at our service. It was not easy but after about ten minutes of pleading with her she came to the morning service. It was at her house that the church really started over the six months of prayer meetings and bible studies. We have just changed locations. The church is not a building but a group who worship in spirit and truth! We asked each one to consider being baptised and begin taking the Lord's supper with us each time we take it. Two people raised their hands to begin this process we pray that we will be faithful to keep the services running..

Mini Cell Church Conference

Saturday we had our very first "conference" at the Regional Training Center. For me this was a great day! I hope to put many people through this "Cell Church" training center in the next ten years. We started with Christina's group which is already a very strong group and is very involved in the ministry. We covered the book 2nd Reformation by Bill Beckham. They were amazed at how different the traditional church is from the church that grew in the homes of believers during the first couple of centuries. We hope to take one group at a time through this training and slowly build a base of church planters through the development of more leaders. Galati is ripe for this type of church. We pray that the Lord will use Christina's group to expand His Kingdom.

This is a very healthy group and are now going through the "Make One Leader" step of the Galati Plan. This is part of our National Bible Reading Campaign that we use to reach out to the lost Orthodox believers.Here the group is in the "Vision Room" trying to see where they live in the city. This will be helpful to us as we begin to spread through out the city.
Of course they had to bring snacks....Oh Lord help me..to restrain from eating all this good food!

Christina - the leader of the group Zone 7

Aura who lives over in Zone12

Mama Catie lives in Zone 7

Sanda (Donnies sister, my first translator who helped get the work started in the valley Zone 6) lives in Zone 3 works over in Zone 6.

Catalina who is doing a great work in the valley lives in Zone 9

Teresa who lives in Zone 7, It was great to have Randy and Teresa join us for our mini conference.

Could be a Church Start

Here is the picture taken before beginning our meetings in our new rented location. We had a great turnout last night. There were around 80 people counting every last soul that was there. We had 15 Americans, about 20 from the local baptist church. So that leaves about 40 or so from the valley that were there. We have actually lost a lot of momentum in the valley but are hoping this will help us regain those that we have lost. We will start meeting every Sunday at 10 to 12. We had a man named Adrian that we are hoping can help us move forward in planting an official church. So we are celebrating today over this amazing night. Our goal is to reach the valley and this was a huge step in the right direction. Praise the Lord! We are so thankful and hope that ONLY He will get the glory for all that has been done..

Here Pastor David Groves is preaching to the people and hoping that they will understand the message of Salvation. Pastor has had huge influence in this church start. Two families from Living Word are now here in the valley working because of Living Word Baptist church passion for missions. We are thankful for our home church who are so committed to us as members and for their commitment to help the people in the valley. It was their trip in 2005 that really began the work with our first meeting at club CFR.

Here is Ruth doing ALL the work while the others just sat around and took pictures. Look at the leadership that Pastor David Groves is showing at this particular moment! Thanks Ruth for being such an example to all around you! We love all of them in spite of this though......we pray that as this team goes over to Moldova for another week of missions it will be blessed by our Heavenly Father!

Committed to the cause

This day we will try and begin an "official" church start in the valley. We have found a place to rent. We have the local church with us, we have found favor with the people in the valley, we have finally broken through a huge barrier. WE PRAY that we have at least. This is a picture from two years ago when we committed to helping these precious people in the valley get a church started. We started prayer walking the area Jan 1 2005. Today May 1, 2008 God's hand of mercy continues to reach out to the people in the valley., Zone 6. Nobody knows what tomorrow's blog picture will look like....will they show up tonight? Will anybody be there? What will the service look like? How can we step back and let God move through this? My hopes and prayers are that God will get all the glory for what He is about to do in the valley. Pray for our meeting tonight. We dearly need to hear from GOD today on how to start this and keep it going. We have already lost two places of meeting before this but our new location is perfect and we believe from God. We found the man that is renting it to us last year. Marshall Link and David Groves were our prayer walking when this man Stoin, the owner of this new meeting place invited them in for tea and coffee. Now only one year later we have a meeting place! Praise the Lord only He could have led us to this mans house.

We have had a good week so far, we even took a ride in a (carootza) horse drawn carriage two days ago with the team all aboard. All the way around the village and it was great! We have a team from Living Word Baptist that has come to help Randy and Teresa transition into their new life and help keep the work in the valley moving. They head to Moldova tomorrow for a mission there also. They have been a great team...thanks for sending them Living Word. It is not every day we get to see the beginning of an "official church" start.